A Rock To Tie A String Around

If there is one reason I’ll be glad to go back to work next week, it will be so I can successfully avoid daytime television which has been running on Octomom Fever.  In case you’ve been under a rock, I’m talking about Nadia Suleman, new mom to eight bouncing babies and creator of her own little league team.

Interview after interview has debated the ethics of fertility treatments, medical malfeasance on part of her doctor, irresponsible behavior on Ocotmom’s part, even whether the babies should be put up for adoption.  I’ve seen doctors, lawyers, midwives, neighbors, Grandma and Grandpa go in front of the camera, and now this week, we heard from Octomom herself.  I trust you’ve seen this, Octomom bawling out her mother for not being supportive.

I’ve gone back and forth on this.  The thing that gets me the most about the entire ordeal is that it seems that the media is trying to make a case that Octomom is unstable, crazy and incapable of caring for her army of children.

This might be the case, it might not be.  I think the point that is being missed here is that they’re interviewing a woman who isn’t even six weeks out of an incredibly traumatic birth.  It made me think.  I had a fairly untraumatic experience when I had my son, and I was a nutcase for about four months, if you ask my husband I’m sure he’d say more like six.

So before you go weighing her overall sanity on the basis of her post-partum interviews and appearances, not to mention the ‘I’m about to pop’ pre-birth interviews done when she was toward the end.  Let’s all consider what crazy things we are capable of when we are controlled by our hormones.

1.    Instead of post-partum depression, I had total post-partum euphoria.  Everything was GREAT.  I was the happiest woman on the planet, I cried every time Robby did the slightest cute thing, just because I was happy, seriously.  It might sound sweet, but picture me out for a walk at the coffee shop, unable to order because I’m bawling over the cute look Robby just gave me.

2.    I wanted my mommy.  Badly.  She was there for the birth, and in the weeks that followed I called her night and day, multiple times per day, sometimes just to tell her that Robby was sleeping, or that he was eating, or that I was eating, or what I was watching on television.  I think she thought it was sweet of me until about day five hit, then I went on her caller ID list.

3.    TMI.  The mental filter that tells you what is an appropriate topic of conversation and what is not was removed during labor.   Therefore for about four months following the event, anyone who asked even the most innocent of questions got my life story complete with gory details.  I found myself telling my mail delivery lady about Robby’s poop, I told friends excruciating birth details in response to benign queries about my health.

Conversely, I would get randomly and irrationally private on occasion.  When another mother at a birthday party asked me how my birth experience was, I reacted like she had asked for my left kidney.  And while I felt she was grossly out of line, I actually convinced myself that the UPS guy really wanted to know how many hours I was in labor.

4.    Raging paranoia.  Maybe I watch too much television, maybe I have an overactive imagination, but I found myself randomly suspicious of suspected baby snatchers.  One afternoon a man with a petition knocked on my door.  He’s here a lot, I never sign his dumb petition, but that day I chased him off the front porch and threatened to call the cops if he didn’t get out of my driveway.

In my defense, it really is a dumb petition.  It’s all about the noise from the airport.  Hello.  I knew there was an airport two blocks away when I moved here; I’m not surprised that there’s noise.  It’s like those people who buy the house next to the prison and then get all upset that they’re living next to a bunch of criminals.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe the media should hold off the interviews and the guesses about her state of mind until six months have passed.  I can guarantee that right now she probably is crazy, I know I was.

I love television, unashamedly, unremorsefully and unapologetically.  My newest obsession is ‘I Survived’ on the Bio Channel.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, every episode focuses on three different stories of survivors from different types of violent calamity.  There are no dramatic reenactments, just well lit interviews, creepy music and scary factoids that pop up at the bottom of the screen.

Without belaboring the cause of why this fascinates and terrifies me, I compiled a list of the top ten lessons I have learned while cowering in my living room watching ‘I Survived’.

1.    Chlorine gas melts stainless steel, actually any metal that it comes into contact with.  I’m truly shocked that this alarming side effect has not been utilized more in horror movies.

2.    Restraining Orders aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.  If a psychotic sociopath has it out for you, then he or she is not concerned about getting fined for violating court orders.

3.    If you suspect a person of poisoning you not once, but twice, do not under any circumstances leave a plate of food, that you intend to eat, in the same room with them unattended.   I don’t care if you are in a restaurant and really have to go, bring the food to the john with you.  It may not seem like it at the time, but this is actually safer.

4.    Keep a charged cell phone under your bed at all times.  First thing that the crazed psychotic sociopaths do is cut the phone lines and break all the cell phones they can find.  After watching this show, I intend to have a stash of phones hidden around my house they can’t find.

5.    Walking down dark roads at night by yourself never leads to anything good.

6.    Never stop the car.  I don’t care if you’ve been shot, run into, harassed, jeered at, whatever.  Never stop the car until you’ve found a public place with lots of people.

7.    Be nice to your dog.  If you ever fall off a remote cliff while jogging and find yourself stranded at the bottom with a smashed pelvis, your dog might just be the only living creature that can save you.  You wouldn’t want him to be holding anything over your head, so don’t be stingy with the biscuits.

8.    Somewhat related to #1, but nothing good ever comes from transporting chlorine gas by train.  Better yet, let’s not transport chlorine gas at all.  Lots of horrifying accidents would be eliminated if we just left it where it was.

9.    If anyone ever says anything randomly creepy to you, a good rule of thumb is to scream and run in the opposite direction. Sure, you risk looking like a paranoid wing nut, but you never know…..

10.    If you are a surfer, you would be well advised to have a large pod of dolphins with you at all time.  I don’t know if you can rent them or if you’d have to raise them from birth and train them one by one… I know it sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, in the event of a shark attack; it’s worth the effort.